Business as usual

Floods or no floods, ordinary Filipino folk eke out a living to make ends meet. A small flea market in San Fernando City, Pampanga, a two-hour bus ride north of Manila, finds these vendors selling fruits and tinapa (smoked fish) on a street inundated by a 15-minute downpour. There was no storm the day this photo was taken, and the city’s streets were perfectly dry before the rain fell. San Fernando residents say that even brief rainshowers can spawn a flood like this in their city because of its bad drainage system, and because the rivers are silted due to lahar (volcanic mudflow) from Mount Pinatubo in nearby Zambales province.

Bulatlat Photo of the Week